'Onion' Editor Joe Randazzo Talks Pulitzer Campaign On 'Morning Joe' (VIDEO)

Editor of "The Onion" Joe Randazzo stopped by "Morning Joe" on Thursday to talk about the paper's campaign to be honored with a Pulitzer, as well as to delve into its history, both real and fake.

The segment had an absurdist tone worthy of "America's finest news source," as Tom Brokaw, Peggy Noonan, Donny Deutsch & Willie Geist peppered Randazzo with questions ranging from Noonan's, "Why is it called 'The Onion'?" to Deutsch asking why Randazzo hasn't considered taking his "sexy little brand" out into the more "telegenic" world ("The Onion" currently has two television shows on cable, "The Onion News Network" on IFC and the recently cancelled "SportsDome" on Comedy Central).

To his credit, Deutsch later commented, "I need to apologize for the single stupidest question ever asked on 'Morning Joe'."

Throughout the interview, Randazzo effortlessly switches back and forth between truthful answers and answers that are true only within the world "The Onion" has created, giving you a real sense of both the brains and the irreverence behind the paper's signature voice. When Brokaw queries why "The Onion" would be interested in an award that is as establishment as the Pulitzer, Randazzo asks, "Which answer do you want, serious answer or jokey answer?"

Brokaw speaks for us all when he says, "Both."

WATCH:

Comments

[Mundane Egg]

09:50 AM on 06/24/2011

After 911 and all the surrounding fear and reactionary threads moving throughout the country a group of us gathered at a local coffee house in Pensacola and read the Onion on line which made us laugh and said a lot of the same things that we wanted to say. There wasn't much to laugh about in those first few days. Laughter gave us hope. Thanks Onion.

[pineappaloupe]

03:21 AM on 06/24/2011

The Onion is brilliant. I was able to find my first print copy on a family vacation in NYC years ago. Somehow I convinced my dad to take me to one of the off-off-off boradway shows that was advertised in The Onion. It was called Mono. It was absolutely amazingly weird, a sock puppet that was crude, a deaf person who used a chalk board to communicate going to a party only to have the board taken over by coke heads. I laughed my ass off, and scared the shit out of my dad. The play happened in a living room. People in the play were in the audience, and erupted into monologues out of nowhere. One of the greatest nights of my life.
If you haven't seen their 'ocular penetration restriction act' and the 'is Halloween too commercialized' videos you life is incomplete.
I got into The Onion in the early days of the internet, when I was 17 or so. It changed my life for the best.

[quixoto]

04:03 PM on 06/23/2011

I can't believe their Comedy Central show got cancelled.